Secrets in War
by jack-damian
Summary: EJ. An English girl in a post-apocalyptic American world. Her old neighbours and friends, the Masons, are almost still around but now they don't work and play alongside each other: they fight, get injured and die alongside each other. But EJ has a few secrets now and even though she is closer to the Masons than before, they are now further apart than before
1. Boston USA

**Okay, this is my first ever fanfiction on this site, so I'm a little bit excited and at the same time bloody terrified. This is basically the character I would have included if I had written Falling Skies. I didn't however and so I'm free to imagine. It's written in first person and follows the adventures of Ellie-Jean (EJ) in the Falling Skies universe. Hope you all like it! **

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from the show, only the characters and events that aren't in the episodes**

**pippastray xxx**

* * *

I ducked when the barricade exploded in our faces. I heard others around me fall to the ground coughing but, gritting my teeth and clutching my gun tightly, I struggled to my feet and looked for movement. From somewhere close by, one man screamed.

Of course, the two people impossible to kill were still there. Tom Mason and his son Hal were trying to clamber up but there was something wrong: Hal's left wrist wouldn't support him. I rushed over and helped him to his feet.

"Get up!" Tom shouted, sounding angry and impatient but in fact he was very worried. I shivered and looked around. There was a heavy coldness in the air, which normally meant one thing. There was no-one else still alive and the three of us ran from the debris of what had once been a barricade down to another street. It was deserted except for burnt-out metal shells that were barely recognisable as cars.

"In here!" Tom snapped at us and I pushed Hal into the deserted shop ahead of me. He'd heard the low growling as well. I shivered again, forcing Hal to the floor underneath what had once been either a desk or a counter. We all heard heard the creepy cicada like shrieking that was the Skitters and the low humming that was the Mechs. I quickly reloaded, keeping half my attention on what I was doing, the other half on the sounds coming from outside. There was a blonde girl crawling along the road: she was hurt and weapon-less. I wanted to help but that would get me killed.

"Skitters," one of them gasped. In the dark I couldn't tell who said it, they sounded so alike. Then came the screeching, like metal on metal. Tom was right next to me and I noticed how much the sound hurt him. Personally, it had ceased to bother me: fighting on the front line had gotten me used to it.

A young-ish man staggered forward into our line of sight. I'd seen him a few times before and he was friendly enough but I didn't know his name. I only realised it was him after a Mech had shot him in the head. Then a burst of blue light hit the blonde girl and she groaned in pain.

"Jerrod's cousin," Hal whispered and surged forward. Tom was way ahead though.

"No, don't," he hissed, holding Hal back, letting his gun lie on the floor for now. "Don't. No, no, no."

I shushed the both of them and then the Skitters came into view.

For those of you who don't know what Skitters are, they're creepy fuckers. They're green, have six legs and two arms, narrow eyes and weird-shaped heads. They're our evil invaders and possible conquerors. I hated them.

This one was exactly the same as the rest of them.

"That's Jerrod's cousin," whispered Hal desperately, knowing that his dad wouldn't let go of him anyway. I bit my lip and forced myself to my feet when another two came into our line of vision.

"Come on," I hissed at them, pulling Tom to his feet. He just about managed to grab his gun. "Come on!" I had no desire to still be in that room when the Skitters heard our escape but I hoped that they treated the blonde girl alright. Hal wasn't coming though and Tom had to drag him to his feet.

"Get up!" he snapped, holding his eldest son like he was a hostage and dragging him out of the room with me bringing up the rear.

We burst out of the back exit and were immediately faced with a whole load of guns.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Hal protested when the guns were levelled at us. I just breathed a sigh of relief.

"Mechs, front. The Colton Street barricade's down. Skitters too," Tom said breathlessly. They'd been doing a hell of a lot of running and the American History Professor wasn't exactly young, so I forgave him that.

"They're up to the Common," growled an older man. His name was General Dan Weaver, he was a war veteran and he was a prick. He knew what he was doing though so I just about managed to follow the orders he gave me, even if I hated his guts. He strode forward to walk next to Tom, with Hal, me and the others falling in behind, all on high alert now. "Both barricade's there are gone. We're falling back. Back Bay is lost." Hal sent me a look I was well accustomed to. We'd been slowly and steadily losing Boston all week but this was really hitting us hard. Tom then immediately voiced what Hal and I were silently saying to each other.

"They take Back Bay, they take the city," he reminded Weaver, jogging alongside him with his firearm at the ready.

"No kidding," replied Weaver and I realised this was not what he wanted to be doing: running away before the alien surge. As I saw it, we had no other option, seeing as anything else would be suicide and he knew it. "Porter's calling us in." Well, that explained everything. I'd never met General Porter but he'd organised all the survivors from round here into a unit and we'd survived that way, even beginning to fight back. I admired him for being able to do that. "Let's go!"

We hadn't taken five steps when a silent something flew over us and dropped something small into the city centre. The explosion gave it all away, as well as the howling wind that blew against us. Then I heard footsteps and looked down from the pretty lights of the explosion to see a dark-skinned woman, probably a few years older than me, running towards us, screaming her head off.

"Quiet!" Tom whispered, running out towards her. "Skitters and Mechs!" He was sounding really quite worried now and he didn't want any more unwelcome attention.

"They've got South Boston!" she yelled, before falling into Tom's arms, ready to keep running. She was one of ours but I'd never seen or spoken to her before and to be honest she didn't look all that scared.

"Rearguard, come on!" Weaver shouted at us, starting to run. Tom let the woman run ahead of him but me and Hal joined him at the back. Hal looked like he wasn't prepared to leave at all.

To be honest neither was I but we all kept running.

* * *

We ran all the way back to the building we were using as base for the moment, slowing down once we saw the first of the watches. We were all exhausted.

As we walked through the trees, one of the younger fighters, Jimmy I think his name was, came out to talk to Hal. They didn't get on really but Hal was the closest to his age out of us all and he was after news.

"We holding?" he asked, not stopping to see how tired, angry and slightly less hopeful we all looked. "Who'd we lose?"

"Captain Jameson, Jerrod's cousin, a bunch of guys I didn't know," replied Hal shortly, not turning round to talk to Jimmy as he climbing the stairs.

"Jameson's dead?" Jimmy shouted to us. No reply. "Who's gonna command the 2nd?" he asked to himself.

We walked through the long corridors, past people warming their hands over oil drums and into a large hall. I sensed that Tom really just wanted to get some sleep but he knew there was still work to be done. He stood at the entrance for a moment, forcing people to go round him, but just watching, not seeing the civilians staring at us like we were heroes. I didn't see where Hal went but I noticed where Tom's gaze went and I smiled.

Uncle Tom had three sons: Hal was the oldest, his middle son was missing and Matt was the youngest. He was only eight. He was also sat in an old car seat, fast asleep in his thick coat. He walked over, not noticing me following him, and crouched down in front of Matt. Then very gently, he swung the little boy over his shoulder in a firearm's carry. Then he went to get some food, which I thought was a great idea.

"You're back from work early." This was Dr Anne Glass, a lovely woman who had a serious crush on Uncle Tom, although he hadn't noticed yet. She always managed to make everything sound so ordinary, which was and wasn't good news.

"Tough day at the office," he replied wearily.

"No shit," I chipped in and Uncle Tom fake-glared at me. I just smiled sweetly in return. "You got anything left?"

"You'd be surprised," Dr Glass told me, slightly frostily: she had a thing against soldiers complaining about civilians and I suppose my question hadn't given her the best indicator of my position in that particular argument.

"We lost the widget account," Uncle Tom finished while Lourdes handed me a bowl of what was meant to be either stew or soup. Whatever it was, it was watery and didn't look all that nice.

"Oh rats. Bad?" asked Dr Glass. Uncle Tom just sighed deeply. God, he looked shattered. He needed to have something to eat, get off his feet and catch a good ten hours' sleep. He looked thin too and overworked.

"Yeah. They're up to Back Bay," he told her and that got her worried. It did that to most people we told.

"Any food?" she asked while we walked away. She noticed that Uncle Tom had a tag-a-long but she didn't comment. I was getting used to following the Masons around: they provided me with some company, seeing as they didn't mind being around an young English woman, whereas most of these Americans did.

Uncle Tom just handed her a single can. Where he had gotten it from I had no idea. It looked so lonely, even if it was just a can.

"Price of tuna's gone up," Anne said drily and I smirked at her. I loved her sense of humour sometimes. Tom made to turn around and find Matt somewhere better to sleep but she stopped him and went to get something off a table. "Wait. Matt drew these." She passed Uncle Tom a whole sheaf of papers, all with coloured drawings on them. It has to be said, Matt was not the best of artists. "He's doing much better. Drew his whole family."

Tom picked up the top drawing and looked it closely. A man, a woman and three boys stood outside a nice house. Hal walked past and Tom tilted the drawing slightly so he could see.

"That does not look like me," was his only comment before he walked off, probably looking for somewhere to sleep. His wrist seemed better but there was a large bruise forming. Anne shook her head slightly, I giggled and Tom looked round for his son with an amused smile threatening to touch his lips. Then someone ruined the moment.

"Tom? Tom." I had no idea who the man yelling was but everyone knew which Tom he meant. It didn't look like he'd be getting any sleep for a while then. "Porter wants to see you."

"Have fun with that," I muttered under my breath. It would just be more business, we both knew that, and Uncle Tom didn't look like he could be bothered. Plus, it would mean he had to deal with Weaver and that was a challenge neither of us ever felt motivated enough for.

"Can you take Matt for me, E.J?" he asked and I just nodded: I always had time for Matt. Carefully he lowered Matt onto my shoulder, which was only an inch below his, handed the drawings to Anne and walked off. I noticed he was still holding his gun.

"Um, Anne?" She turned to face me, intrigued already. "Could I take those, please?" I pointed to the drawings she was still holding. My request just made her smile.

"Of course," she replied and she tucked them in my back pocket for me, seeing as I had no free hands at the moment. "There's one at the bottom that I think you'll find interesting," she added before she turned away. I noticed she didn't ask about the insomnia anymore.

My name is Ellie-Jean Dunstan. Most people call me E.J though and nowadays I'm a Mason more than a Dunstan. Tom isn't actually my uncle, he's just developed a strange protectiveness: I think I may be replacing his missing son until we can find him. I have bright red hair, which attracted strange looks, the Americans don't acknowledge the existence of gingers and redheads, and blue eyes. I'm tall for a girl and wiry too, so that even Hal won't annoy me. I'm a couple of years older than him and I was about to start university (or college as the Americans said). I'd been living across the road from the Masons for three years before the invasion. A month afterwards, I found them again, only Mrs Mason was dead, Ben was missing and I had no-one at all.

Life sucked, but at least I had Matt for now.

I found a quieter corner next to an oil drum and carefully wrapped Matt in my coat. I rarely took it off now except when someone else needed it, and he curled up in my lap. It made eating very difficult but I managed and then I looked through his pictures. The one right at the bottom showed a girl, about twenty-one, wearing a long-ish leather coat and with her baseball cap hiding her hair, surrounded by dead Skitters. Of course, the girl was me and I made a mental note to show Tom that. He'd also included me when he'd drawn what family he had left.

That made me feel a little less alone.


	2. Go Time

**OMG! Chapter Two! Sorry there's so much dialogue in this one but I really wanted to show just how important E.J is to the 2nd Mass and how close she and the Masons are.**

**Please feel free to leave reviews, they are hugely encouraging to a writer just starting out!**

**pippastray**

* * *

In the morning, at about four thirty to be precise, I was startled from my sleep. I didn't understand why, because for once I hadn't been sleeping too bad, but now I was awake and that wasn't going to change. I wondered whether my body had gotten used to very little sleep and now thought I didn't need any more. That was likely and annoying.

I frowned when I felt something heavy resting against the curve of my waist. During the night, I'd slumped to the floor, so I was lying on my side and when I gently twisted to see what it was, I was looking down at the peacefully sleeping face of Professor Tom Mason. Hal was sleeping close by and of course Matt was still wrapped in my leather coat. It felt like a sleepover (or slumber party as they would call it) with the Mason boys.

Very carefully I sat up and laid Uncle Tom down with Matt. He frowned in his sleep and made what sounded like a very distressed noise before holding Matt closer. I sat with them for a few minutes, alternating between running my fingers through Uncle Tom's hair and Matt's hair. It calmed them both down, I noticed quickly and that didn't surprise me one bit: this was hardly the first time I'd watched them both sleep. Uncle Tom sometimes talked in his sleep when he wasn't sleeping well but now he was completely passed out cold.

Very quickly I got bored so I left them to sleep and went to see who was on watch. Most of them I didn't really speak to but Dai had just come on and Mike was about to get off, so I told him to head back early as I had nothing useful to do. He was grateful for the chance to get in some rest and he was gone in minutes.

I didn't know Dai all that well: he was the strong and silent type but I'd been paired with him for scouting before and he was nice enough. He was quiet and haunted though, that was clear to me. I was curious about him and I think he was curious about me but neither of us knew how to ask the questions.

"Can't sleep?" It was Dai who first tried to start a conversation and he chose a pretty good subject.

"More like I've had too much sleep," I replied. I still felt tired but my body was used to operating on much less sleep than what I'd had, which was weird. "I think insomnia's gaining ground." Dai pulled a sympathetic face but I just sighed. "You don't need to feel sorry for me," I told him. "I'm used to it by now. Besides, there are always drawbacks in war and there are other people who deserve your consideration more than I do."

"Like Tom Mason?" he suggested and I nodded. Dai looked away towards the half-moon and made a 'fair enough' sort of face. "Guy hasn't exactly had it easy recently, has he?"

"You could say that," I murmured. Then I noticed that there was a 50cal on the back of one of the GTOs. "What's that about?" I asked him, pointing out the gun. Dai smiled.

"You didn't get the memo?" he asked, laughing quietly.

"I was probably sleeping for a change," I shot back and he twisted his lips when he realised I had a legitimate point.

"We move out in the morning," he told me. "We're both part of the 2nd Mass. We've got Weaver as our commanding officer, which should be interesting in itself, and Tom's his second. Professor Kick-ass," he added under his breath, laughing again. I didn't like the fact Weaver was now at the top of the pecking order but the nickname Professor Kick-ass for Uncle Tom might end up sticking.

"What happened to you?" I asked timidly, completely out of the blue. Dai locked up at that, like he didn't want to talk about it but when he saw how scared I had been to ask about it, more scared than when I'm faced by Skitters and Mechs, he relented.

Dai was born in Vietnam and had come over to America when he was a child. He hadn't had any family to lose when the invasion started: his blood family were all dead before that, plus he had been single and childless beforehand. I reflected that even though Dai had lost less than everyone else, he hadn't had as much in the first place. He seemed like a very lonely person.

In return, I told him much of my story, about my parents and my two little brothers, what had happened during the invasion, how I'd met Uncle Tom and how we'd known each other before. It turned out that Tom had saved the both of us from Skitters. We really bonded that night and when the sun came up the next day, we knew we could count on each other. But the moment someone else came round to relieve us, he went from the charming talkative young man to the quiet deadly soldier in a matter of milliseconds. I knew he'd come back though and that was what mattered.

Before we left, my top priority was to reclaim my coat and for that I had to find either Uncle Tom or Matt. I wandered back towards the barricade, passing a huge pile of fallen books and for a precious moment I paused. I knew what Uncle Tom liked and so I quickly plucked a very thin book from the pile. It had caught my eye and I remembered him wishing he had a good book to read when he couldn't sleep on a night.

I found Matt sat on a box at the entrance with a clipboard and pencil. He had his box of belongings with him, as well as a black rucksack and a leather coat: both mine. I smiled at his thoughtfulness. He was a gentleman, like his father, who just happened to be there as well.

"But tonight's the eighth," Matt protested quietly in response to something I'd missed. "It's my party." Damn. I'd have to nip back and get a book from the barricade. I wasn't sure if I'd have time though and that was really disappointing.

"Oh, sure thing, your highness," Hal drawled over the bike he was working on. I just frowned in Hal's direction: sure, a party wasn't top priority right now but this was his little brother and he should be making an effort. If my little brothers were still around, I would be ecstatic on their birthdays.

"Hey, you had a birthday party too. And it was after they came!" Matt shot back. I just frowned at Uncle Tom, who sighed deeply.

"We'll try to do a little something when we get settled," Uncle Tom promised.

"Really, we will," I assured him when he looked doubtful. "Me, your dad and Hal are going to try our best to get something together, okay?" Matt sighed but nodded anyway: I could tell he thought we weren't going to have the time.

"We're doing the best that we can," Uncle Tom added wearily. I noticed that while he'd been speaking, he'd finished packing what few belongings he still had. Like me, everything he now owned could fit in a single rucksack. And even with a half-decent night's sleep, we were both still exhausted. He had helped with the GTO though and I'd spent half the night on watch so neither of us could claim we'd had quite that much sleep.

He tried to smile for Matt before he picked up his gun and strode off. Matt looked after him with what I thought was a longing expression but picked up his box of things and his dad's rucksack. That was just considerate of him.

"Hey. Give him a break, alright?" Hal shouted, leaning over his bike with a slightly irritated frown. His little brother just walked away looking like he might start crying.

I went over to talk, shrugging into my coat and slinging my bag over my shoulder. My bike, a fairly quiet, light BMW was resting next to his and I quickly checked the tank. Damn, that looked bad: I was low as hell. Hal watched my every move sharply, like he was waiting for me to be angry. I wasn't angry, I just thought he was going about this the wrong way.

"Maybe you should give Matt a break," I told him quietly, breaking the oppressive silence. He'd been fixing a puncture on his own bike but he stopped what he was doing the moment I spoke.

"I just don't think he's taking it seriously enough, that's all," he replied quietly. "I'd love to give him the best birthday party he's ever had but I know I can't. I have other things that need doing. Why'd you say that I'd help?" he asked as an afterthought.

"Because I know that I'd want to if he was my little brother," I said quietly. Of course, Hal knew exactly what had happened to my little brothers, so he knew I could empathise with how worried he was and how much he wanted to find Ben.

I wanted to find him too: back before all this happened, he'd been my best friend, even if I was five years older than him.

"Why'd you look out for us three all the time?" he asked me as I kick-started my bike. I looked back at him and sighed.

"Because there's no-one else I can look out for," I replied. Hal's friend Karen rode up and then all three of us rode out to the convoy.

Karen Nadler was a bit of a mystery to me. She was very beautiful, but not girly, and she knew exactly how pretty she was and didn't care. Hal noticed but he loved her personality more. However she was a little trigger-happy sometimes and she got very jealous if another girl even looked at Hal in a slightly attracted way. She didn't mind having me around because she knew that nothing would ever happen between me and Hal and all three of us knew it.

Then we were moving out.

I looked around at the 2nd Mass. There were injured men, sporting huge cuts on every part of their body. The civilians looked bedraggled and scared. Weaver was riding with the 50cal and looking like a warlord, which didn't impress me much: he should be walking with his people. Uncle Tom was and I noticed a distinct book-shape in his rucksack. It looked like he'd had the same idea as I had. I put everything out of my head.

We rode up away from the city centre and once we hit a good road, Weaver sent some of us out to scout for food. That didn't end well.

Everyone was crowded round a food store with empty shelves when Hal, Karen and I got back from our scouting trip. The first two people we saw when we rode past were Weaver and Uncle Tom.

"Dad! Every food store and cache between here and Acton's picked clean," Hal relayed, then rode off to find somewhere to check his bike. Something had been rattling and it didn't sound too healthy on the way back.

"Every single one?" Tom asked as I leaned my bike up against the wall. I just nodded: I had my soldier head on now, not my friend head, and I went over as they came out.

"Too many of us," Weaver muttered and there, I had to agree with him. "If it were just the fighters, we could stretch our provisions-"

"Well, it's not and we need food," Tom retorted. I knew he came down more on Anne's side of the civilian-versus-soldier debate and, despite the appearances I gave, so did I. "So it's one of the Shop-Smarts then. Either the store in West Newton or the distribution centre in Watertown," he suggested. Weaver unfolded the map, then looked up and surveyed the group. I was almost certain we were thinking the exact same thing.

"We can't go back, not with this group," he said heavily. "Too many. Too slow." He didn't sound pleased. I could see Tom thinking something through though and, me being familiar with his genius plans, knew it would probably resolve the issue.

"Maybe half the vehicles, half the fighters go back, get the food and catch up?" I just smiled.

"Are you sure you were always a History Professor?" I asked teasingly and he shot me a don't-you-dare sort of look. We were both thinking of his new nickname.

"Yeah, that sounds great," Weaver agreed. Then I noticed the sarcasm and I glared at his back. Why couldn't he ever accept a good idea that he hadn't thought up? "Who's going to lead 'em? You?" I sighed deeply and walked off, knowing that if I was around him for much longer, I would end up smacking him in the face. I felt their eyes on my back as I started my bike and went over to find a spot to clean it up. I needed a methodical task to take my mind off how much I disliked Dan Weaver.

"E.J?" I looked up and saw Dai walking towards me, slipped something into his pocket as he did. To me, it looked suspiciously like C-4, but I decided against asking. "Tom's looking for volunteers for a mission-" He didn't need to say another word. I grabbed my guns, some extra ammo and passed my bag to Mike, asking him to take my motorbike as well. He just nodded.

"Thomas?" Dai called and Tom stood up from where he was working on one of the cars.

"Dai, E.J, are you in?" he asked, looking over us nervously. We looked at one another and then I nodded.

Dai looked around, almost like he was nervous too, and then back to Tom. "Yup."

"Weaver's keeping all the heavy stuff," he told us, almost apologetically. Dai just gave me a look when I went past him to start covering up the back of the car and I giggled.

"Is that right?" he asked quietly and threw the silver thing he'd kept in his pocket. Tom caught it, just.

"C-4? Where did you get this?" he asked Dai, who just gave him a don't-ask look. Then he started helping Jimmy. Tom looked at me with a questioning face but I just shrugged.

"I have a feeling we shouldn't ask," I told him, grinning. I was getting excited now. Tom just sighed and slipped it into his jacket, going off to see someone. I just went to find Hal and Karen. They were the scouts and I was just there to shoot Skitters.

Always fun.

"I already know what I'm going to wish for," Matt said as I walked over to help Tom and Hal. He was sat with his toy car while Tom finished unloading the pickup we would be using. Anthony and Click were getting ready too, so I assumed they were joining us on the food trip.

"Oh yeah? What?" I asked as I climbed into the back of the pickup and started making sure everything was out.

"Well, I can't tell you," he replied like it was the stupidest question ever. I just shrugged.

"No, but you can tell Tom. He's your father," I told him. He looked at us both like we were idiots and I laughed quietly, passing Tom one of the boxes.

"It's rule 6-19, you can tell me anything," he added, completely seriously, but I was sure he was just making it up as he went along. "Hand me that sleeping bag, would you?" I reached down before Matt could and very gently tossed it to him, trying not to knock Matt of the bus.

"Are you sure?" he asked us worriedly and I was so glad he was still a child at heart. Now I didn't even have birthday wishes, let alone worry if telling someone what they were would negate them.

"Of course," Hal chipped in. Karen had gone off somewhere and he was looking a little bit grim, to be honest. "How else do you think you're going to get what you ask for?" I just sighed and ignored the rest of the conversation: I was getting myself ready to kill Skitters.

Normally, I would find it very hard to kill anything, but with Skitters, it's easier for me. I just think about the fact that my family is dead and that it's all their fault. Then I can shot one straight through the eye. Not like that would kill a Skitter. They're infuriatingly hard to kill.

I watched Hal actually make Matt smile for a change and then Tom got everyone together to give us the run-down on the mission. Hal and Karen would see which way the alien forces were coming then report back to us at the train station. Then we would go to whichever food store was safer, get as much food as we could and get the hell out before we got ourselves killed.

Sounded like a plan.

* * *

**So what do you all think? Sorry there's so little Ben, after the first episode story it should start moving a lot quicker! :D**


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